


Aradia Bones

by actualmuseofspace



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Conscription, Desert, F/M, Helmstrolls, Mentions of Suicide, Morbid, Murder, aradia is very morbid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 15:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualmuseofspace/pseuds/actualmuseofspace
Summary: You've nothing but the rattling bones of what you've done in your stomach.--Alternatively, Aradia contemplates the value of service to the empire and her late moirail.





	Aradia Bones

You've nothing but the rattling bones of what you've done in your stomach.

Maybe this wasn't the right choice.

You thought it was, but there was probably another way. Now you're alone, well, mostly alone. A few ghosts, flimsy in the heavy night air, rustle around you. You should've found a better solution. You could’ve found a better solution.

You couldn't have. You're having a hard enough time on your own. There's no one who will keep a rustblood like you, much less a necropath with ghosts to explain how she's murdered her moirail. Kanaya kept you for a while, but now she's gone too. Off in the brooding caverns.  _ She _ didn't think it was better, not for her anyway.

You need shelter. She gave you her best advice for surviving the desert, but you don't really care if a zombie approaches you. If the ghosts don't keep them off, you'll be free. If you weren't so sure of what would happen when you die then you'd do it yourself, but you are sure of what would happen when you die. You'll be tagged onto another necropath, and your screams will echo in his ears, but that doesn't matter so much now that he's gone.

And you promised him.

He died quickly, too quickly to make a cheesy diamond at you. Right before, you sat cross-legged in his respite block, brainstorming and planning, and pretending that this wasn't the end. You promised that you'd be around to make sure his lusus didn't get too horribly maimed without someone looking after him, and then he made you promise.

Well. You could break it, there's nothing stopping you, but the guilt would weigh too heavy on you. What's the point of death, anyway, when it brings no respite?

There's nothing around here but open space. It leaves too much room for your thoughts to echo. You could go back to Kanaya's hive, make your way to the city. Terezi would be happy to prosecute you. Maybe for real, maybe not. Maybe you could keep running all the way to the sea, and call a certain princess, his red counterbalance. You always got along well with her, but she didn't even know you had a plan.

What kind of surprise would that be.

Maybe you're better off here, skirt full of sand and skulls in your modus polished, than anywhere else. Here you are surrounded by your kind, those who pretend to be dead and those who pretend to be alive. On the map scrawled quickly in jade, you know there's an oasis up ahead. A few more miles. You can make it a little longer in the sun, but you will suffer all the more for it. Your blood will boil before anyone else's.

That would be a fun way to die, you suspect. Interesting, at least, for the scavengers who would find you, but painful. And you're not far from a few scraggly trees and an underlying sandbank that makes an Indian Ink blot in the night, but will provide shade all morning.

A ghost rustles it's skin next to you. It's the kind that's been around too long without doing what it has to. It wants to say something, and it's probably strong enough to do it by itself.

You keep walking. There's no point in covering your footprints. You keep walking, leaving a trail behind you. Cookie crumbs in case you ever change your mind. Who knows, maybe one day you'll want to get locked into a ship with no future but the past, or forced to dispel ghosts who only want their quadrants to get an explanation. Some of the ghosts want to go, at any rate, they just don't know how.

He wanted to go, and he knew how. You don't know if you want to go.


End file.
